Cauquenes Valley
Cauquenes Valley is a sub-region of the Tutuvén Valley within the Maule Valley.The main variety here consists of very old goblet-trained Carignan vines. This is a dry-farmed vineyard with no irrigation and very low yields, thus ensuring a perfect combination of concentrated fruit and complexity in the wine. Most of the soil is clay-based and deep, with low fertility.
The Cauquenes Valley is located in the Tutuvén Valley, within the Maule Viticultural Region, and are characterized by their undulated topography and heterogeneous soils. With a sub-humid Mediterranean weather, it shows well marked seasons, high amounts of sunlight, and annual rainfall of 700mm. These conditions allow the valley to present a wide thermal fluctuation that goes from 15° to 18° Celsius, allowing an adequate growing and ripening of the grapes, giving, as a result, fruit that presents a better varietal expression. Nowadays, this valley shows promise to give Chile a variety of wine whose quality and identity have seldom before been seen.
Carignan old vines are common in the Cauquenes Valley and has been rediscovery as a neglected treasure of the Chilean wine industry. Carignan vineyards were first planted on a large scale in the Maule Valley region in the early 1940s, when, in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake in 1939, the Ministry of Agriculture proposed encouraging the planting of Carignan to improve the region’s wines. The thinking was that the naturally high acidity and colour of Carignan would improve the local wines. So for more than 50 years the vineyards of Maule have been home to dry grown, old vine Carignan. Previously a workhorse variety that was used to blend, Chilean winemakers are now realizing they have a precious resource.
Denomination of Origin: Maule
Region: Central Valley
Sub-Region: Maule
Includes Zones: Claro, Loncomilla, Tutuvén (Cauquenes)
Complementary Areas: Entre Cordilleras, Andes
Soils
In this zone the Andes are characterised by the presence of volcanoes that define the boundaries of the sunken basin landscape and are no higher than the 4,000 m.a.s.l. except for the Peteroa volcano, 4.090 metres high, followed by the Descabezado Grande 3,830 metres high; there are also others such as the Descabezado Chico and Quizapu. Volcanic activity and glacial action have generated small cordilleran lakes, such as the Laguna del Maule 3,000 m.a.s.l. in the eastern basin of that river. Between the precordillera and the Coastal Range we find the Longitudinal Valley, which is widest (40 kilometres) at Linares and has a length of 170 kilometres. Its relief is flat and interrupted by many rivers that cross it from East to West.
However, towards the centre and South of the region a precordilleran relief of 400 to 1,000 m.a.s.l. appears between the sunken basin and the Andes. This relief, which masks the sunken basin, is known as “La Montaña”. The Coastal Range is low (between 300 and 700 m.a.s.l.) with soft hills framing basins and valleys. This range is divided into two chains, one of these originates the Cauquenes basin (to the South of the region), which has special microclimatic conditions. Heights do not exceed the 900 m.a.s.l. Seafront plains are well developed, with terraces of up to the 200 m.a.s.l. and about five kilometres wide interrupted by rivers that flow into the sea. There are wide beaches, such as Constitución and dunes in the zone of Putú, Chanco, and Curanipe. In the western slope of the Coastal Range, as well as in the zones immediately north of it, the soils are well evolved from granitic rocks, with clay content in depth. In the sector near the coast the soils derive from high marine terraces, are reddish brown in colour and their relief is flat or with soft slopes. Soils that can reverse due to dilatation and contraction of the clays and whose origin is the deposit of fine sediments in lacustrine conditions are found near the city of Parral.
In the Central Valley, between the Coastal Range and the Andes, we find alluvial soils of moderate development. Most of the irrigated lands are sited in these soils of the Maule viticultural region. In the precordillera and the sectors of stronger relief of the Andes we find coarse-grained soils derived from volcanic accumulation.
Climate
The region of the Maule valley is characterised, as other regions of the Central Valley of Chile, by a temperate climate with wide differences between the coast and its inland valleys. The orographic conditions of the region do not allow winds from the ocean to enter the sunken basin; this causes a wide thermal range, different to what occurs on the coast, where sea fogs are present practically during the whole year. The difference between the coast and the sunken basin is significant, and shows in humidity, thermal variation and rainfall. The basin of Cauquenes, South of the region, shows special microclimatic conditions. The rains are more abundant as the territory continues towards the South increasing the diversity and density of the vegetation and feeding rivers of greater volume. The Maule viticultural region is influenced by the hydrographic system of the river Maule, which is born in the Andes and has as tributaries in its higher course the Puelche, Los Cipreses, Claro and Melado rivers. It has also the Loncomilla River as affluent in the sunken basin, and enters the sea near the city of Constitución.